How 'Booth Babes' at Crypto Conferences Could Lead to Big Hacks Like Drift's

Unchained

Laura Shin

Business News, News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2026

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Drift hack wasn't a one-off exploit. It was a patient operation spanning months, with nation-state actors working the conference circuit. Then Circle let the hackers take the money. Bitcoin’s application layer, Citrea, launched its mainnet, expanding Bitcoin’s utility to privacy, lending, BTC yields, and more. Citrea enables: cBTC: The first trust-minimized Bitcoin on a fully programmable platform. ctUSD: A native stablecoin for Bitcoin, allowing for unified liquidity. Bitcoin Capital Markets bringing demand, and utility to the Bitcoin Network. Explore the Citrea Ecosystem. http://citrea.xyz/unchained =============================================================================== Ether.fi is giving Unchained listeners 15% cashback on food and ride apps — and that's on top of the 3% you get on everything else. Your bank is charging you to use your own money. Laura switched and loves her card! Go to http://ether.fi/unchained to claim your offer. =============================================================================== The Drift hack looked like a typical smart contract exploit until the postmortem revealed something far more elaborate: a six-month DPRK intelligence operation involving in-person social engineering at crypto conferences, fully constructed professional identities, and a $1 million deposit to build trust. Then, after $232 million in USDC was stolen, Circle declined to freeze the funds while attackers bridged them across chains for six hours during business hours. Michael Lewellen from Turnkey and Amanda Wick from VerifyVASP tackle what the Drift compromise teaches about operational security in crypto, why Circle's decision raises hard questions about stablecoin issuer responsibility, and whether the legal framework is forcing companies to choose between compliance and doing what's right. Host: Laura Shin, Host / Unchained Guests: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Amanda Wick, Head of Americas at VerifyVASP ⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Lewellen, Head of Solutions Engineering at Turnkey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things Crypto. I'm your host,
0:05.0	Laura Shin. Thanks for joining this live stream. Before we get started, a quick reminder,
0:09.6	nothing new here on Unchained is investment advice. This show is for informational and entertainment purposes
0:14.0	only, and my guest tonight may hold assets discussed in the show. For more disclosures, visit UnchainedCripto.com.
0:20.2	Bitcoin changed how money works. Satrea changes how Bitcoin scales. With a trust-minimized
0:25.3	BTC and a native stable coin, CTUSD, Citraia enables Bitcoin capital markets with lending, privacy,
0:32.8	Bitcoin yield, and more. Get started at satraia.xyz slash unchained. Etherfi is giving Unchained listeners
0:39.4	15% cash back on food and ride apps, and that's on top of the 3% you get on everything else.
0:45.1	Your bank is charging you to use your own money. I switched. Go to ether.fi slash unchained
0:50.7	to claim your discount. Today's topic is the Hollywood thriller backstory to the drift hack and the backlash against
0:58.9	Circle.
0:59.8	Here to discuss are Amanda Wick, Head of Americas at Verify Vasp, and Michael Llewellyn,
1:05.5	head of Solutions Engineering at Turnkey.
1:08.0	Welcome, Amanda and Michael.
1:10.1	Good to be here.
1:10.5	Hi. Thanks for having us. When we
1:12.9	originally booked this podcast, we thought we were going to focus on how Circle handled the
1:17.5	Drift hack, but over the weekend, when Drift gave its post-mortem on how the attack was actually
1:23.2	six months in the making, we realized we needed to cover that huge story as well.
1:29.5	So let's start with that.
1:31.4	For listeners who weren't on crypto Twitter this Easter weekend, Michael, do you want to catch
1:36.2	people up to speed on what exactly Drift said about how they got compromised?
	...

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